Monday, February 20, 2012

My exposure to Malvani food has been very limited, and for many years was largely confused with Mangalorean food, thanks to a certain Ossie Pereira, my early guide to western Indian cuisines among other more important things. It was after watching some food shows on TV that I learned about the distinct Malvani style, and began to keep my eyes and ears open for an opportunity to try something out. That opportunity came in the form of a Malvani Chicken and Kombdi Vade post on Poonam Borkar’s excellent food blog - Kande Pohe.

Overview:

Make Malvani Masala Powder by blending roasted spices together.

Marinade the chicken with the masala, lime juice and some oil.

Make coconut-onion paste along with a little garlic, some ginger and fresh coriander leaves.

Fry the onions, with some hing, add the chicken and fry for a while. Let it all brown and stick a little.

Add the coconut onion paste.

Bring to a boil, adjust the gravy consistency.

Done.

I first made a Malvani masala powder with Poonam’s ingredients, which are

Friday, November 18, 2011

I could totally identify with readers who have written in asking what a springform baking tin is. I myself didn’t know what it was till a few years back, though I have been baking for a while. It is a round baking tin that most commonly comes in standard sizes of 7 and 9 inches, with a removable bottom, and banded interlocking sides that is held together with a clasp. So you can remove the sides and slide out the bottom easily. It is very similar to the baking tins with removable bottoms, except that this has removable sides too.

The sides are usually 1.5 to 2 inches high, and the side clasps look like retro baggage clasps. Depending on the brand or make that you buy, you might or might not get a choice of a flat or a dimpled bottom or both. I didn’t and since it didn’t make sense to buy two of them just for the bottom, I went instead with a dimpled bottom. These tins are specially useful for making cheesecakes, flourless cakes, and other delicate preparations where you want to avoid having to shake the dish out of the tin.

They are usually not absolutely waterproof so if you are going to be baking your cheesecake in a water bath, you may want to double wrap the bottom with foil before putting your cake in.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

This is a lamb recipe that my mom sent me a few years back. It is an extremely tasty Himachali dish from the chamba region. It is a subtle dish using hing (asafoetida) and yogurt. I searched for additional information, but beyond variations of the same recipe I was not able to find much background to this simple and delicious dish. I will be grateful to hear back from you if you have any further information on this recipe or this style of cooking.

1. Wipe the mutton clean and keep aside. Chop the fresh coriander and keep aside.
2. Beat the yogurt till smooth.
3. Make a thin paste of gram flour with a few spoons of water and add it to the yogurt and blend well.
4. Heat the oil till smoking.
5. Turn the heat down and add the dry red chilis.
6. Once the chilis are almost looking burnt, add the cloves, the black pepper, cumin seeds, methi seeds, cinnamon powder, bay leaves, and the hing powder. Let it cook for about 2 minutes on the low heat.
7. Add the mutton pieces, and stir well, searing the meat and sealing the juices in. Cook on a medium heat for about 20 minutes, stirring periodically to ensure that the meat is evenly browned.
8. Once the meat is nicely and evenly browned, take it off the heat, wait for a few minutes for it to stop cooking and then add the yogurt and gram flour paste to it, and stir it in well.
9. Put the meat back on to a medium heat and bring it to a boil. Add salt to taste. You can also add turmeric powder or chili powder if you like. Let it boil for another 20-30 minutes till the meat is cooked through. You can also pressure cook it for 10 minutes or 3-4 whistles if you wish.
10 Garnish with chopped coriander leaves. Serve hot with rice or roti.

The second time around that we made this, we got confused between this and another recipe, and added three smashed pods of black cardamom along with the red chilis to the initial tarka. We followed the rest of this recipe. To our surprise, it turned out really well. You may want to try it as a variation.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

The first crop of mountain green chili's from our balcony garden. These were grown from the ones that Dad had carefully packed and brought a year back.

When they first started germinating and sprouting, we were doubtful if they would survive the heat of Hyderabad.

Several of the plants that grew to a full size ultimately withered away
during the summer, but a few survived. They went months without
flowering, and then just around the end of monsoon, they started
flowering.

Very sparsely, and with more plants succumbing to the dry
heat of the day, they started bearing fruit.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

For the conscientious homemaker, the kitchen is, for all good purposes, the center of the home. It is where meals are prepared that sustain the family and thrill the guests. With the stresses of modern living, the last thing that one wants is to have to go into a cluttered kitchen. Clutter not only makes it difficult to operate in the kitchen, but also constricts the creative process. For someone wanting to serve up a nice meal, this can lead to a disaster instead. Here are some basic guidelines to make your kitchen clutter-free.

Make the Most of Cabinets and ShelvesModern apartments tend to be small and the kitchen often gets the least of storage space assigned to it. The solution is to use scientific principles of organizing things. Like most homemakers, you too must be having your own system for organizing your pantry. Apply the same principles here, but more effectively.

Use the depth of the cabinet to stock similar items. Keep the taller cans, jars and bottles at the back so that they are easily visible. Stack containers on top of each other. Get yourself labels and markers so that you can write what item is in which container. Keep similar items together. You may want to keep all the baking ingredients in one place, all the herbs in one place, and all the outdoor cooking supplies in one place.

Drawers Can Save Space and Prevent ClutterMake use of the space under the counter to install drawers. You can have drawers of different heights built so that you can store all kinds of items that you will be needing most frequently while you work. Use partitions to divide your drawers into distinct areas.

Use Overhead Units for Infrequently Used ItemsYou can get overhead storage units built if your kitchen does not already have them. These can be used to store items that are not used frequently. If you look around your kitchen you will find many items that only get used on rare occasions but hog up storage all year round. All such items can be kept in these overhead units.

Audit Your PantryA common experience for homemakers is to discover forgotten items, packages that have exceeded their use-by date, and remnants of hard-to-identify things. Audit your pantry ruthlessly, and trash all things that are past or close to their use-by date. Throw out everything that you cannot identify. You can also wait till your mother-in-law drops by, so that she gets you to throw them out.

Reclaim the CornersThe corners of the kitchen are spaces that are lost to utility. Browse the home supplies stores for suitable corner storage units. These are ideal for keeping small items such as dried herbs, essences, etc. If you are not hanging roll dispensers, you can use the corners to stand them up.

Practice Keeping Things BackOne of the main sources of kitchen clutter comes from things that have not been put back where they belong. Make it a habit to replace things where you took them from. (This point has been thrust upon this post, and I am leaving it in, since I cannot disagree with it.)

Hang Things That Can Be HungItems like cling wrap, paper towels, and aluminum foil can be used from hanging dispensers. This makes them readily available without your having to clutter up your workspace every time you need to use them. The same can be done for pots and pans that can be hung. A wide range of solutions are also available for racks and rails with sliding hooks to hang things from. These can be customized to meet your particular needs. Many appliances such as hand blenders, can openers, detergent dispensers can also be wall mounted in order to reduce clutter.

Stack Up Your AppliancesSeveral smart and sleek shelving solutions are now available that let you stack your electrical appliances on top of each other. Some of these come with heat insulation and venting so that you can even stack heat emitting appliances in them. You may also want to consider modern multipurpose appliances that combine the functionality of many of the older gadgets. A drastic step would, of course, be to let go of some of the non essential gadgets and appliances. We lived without a fridge for a while, and got by.

I have found that the biggest clutter that we had in our kitchen came from multiple instances of the same item, and from heaps of take-away cartons and containers. The other big piece of clutter was decrepit cookware that we would never use, but did not trash or donate. The same applied to chipped crockery, faded melamine, and non-stick cookware that has begun to stick. There were also a lot of stuff that we bought based on good advertising but never used after the first time, since they were, in one word, useless. Look in your kitchen and ruthlessly throw out all that you are not going to use, and you will be surprised at the sense of freedom it gives you.

One of the things that I did was to take some of the utensils that came out of this process and use them as planters in the garden. It might have cluttered our balcony garden but it did end up making our kitchen look neater, so there. As you can perhaps make out, this conclusion is building itself as my writing is being reviewed. For those who may be interested in setting up a budget kitchen, you may want to check out an earlier post on how to set up a budget kitchen.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

I was reviewing my blog stats on the weekend, when I found that 16 visits in the last month to my otherduller blog with a duller name, came from searches for "low calorie cheesecake!" And the page that these searches led to wasJanis Joplin'sbirthday post.
I wondered about the 16 people, not entirely without regret, and hoped
that they had found what they wanted elsewhere. In an act of pointless
compassion, I searched for the exact phrase "low calorie cheesecake,"
and was shocked to find 94,900 results. The internet is truly amazing.
You might even come across a "humble blogger" some day. However, it
inspired me to finally reply to the two emails that had asked about
keeping this blog alive, and to battle my anhedonia with the only known
cure for anhedonia - a good cheesecake.

You will need

1/2 kg Cream cheese (fresh paneer blended well before use works fine)

100 g Sugar

3
Egg yolks (use the whites to make one heart healthy omelet for dinner,
obviously only for him, who else would you serve that tasteless thing
to!)

200
g digestive biscuits (this is how it is
traditionally done, but if you want to do it our way, use the chocolate
cream biscuits, more of the bad stuff, but tastier, and the chocolate
biscuits turn into something altogether different when they are baked a
second time)

50 g Butter(chop it into very small cubes while chilled)

Method

The Crust

Throw
the biscuits into a paper bag or a ziploc and crush them like Nigella
with a rolling pin and put the traumatized biscuits into a blender.
Process till crumbly. Take it out in a bowl and add the butter pieces.
Rub the butter with your fingers into the biscuit crumbs till they are
gone, and keep mixing till it is evenly spread all over the crumbs, Take
this mix and press it into the base of the baking tin, making sure to
spread it evenly and into the edges. Place the tin in the deep freezer
for about 30 minutes.

The Filling

Put
the cottage cheese, sugar, and egg yolks in the blender and blend at
low speed till smooth. This should not take more than 1 or 2 minutes.
Curb the temptation to go to higher speeds or to blend for longer. Take
out the tin with the crust from the freezer, and pour the filling into
the tin. In an oven preheated to 170, put the tin in the middle rack and
bake for 50 minutes.

The Seasoning

The
trick of making good cheesecake is to let it season and rest at every
stage. Don't open the oven, but let it stay in the switched off oven for
another hour. Take it out after that. There is no way you can undo
anything that may have gone wrong, so don't even bother with checking.
If you are going to be putting a topping, do that now, and stick it into
the refrigerator for at least 12 hours. I have found it best to make
cheesecake after dinner, since you are full and don't feel bad about
putting this devil-sent cake into the fridge overnight.

The topping

You
can let your imagination run wild as far as cheesecake topping is
concerned. A classic chocolate topping can be made by melting 25 g
butter with 50 g of castor sugar, stirred till bubbling and light brown,
to which you add 100 g of dark chocolate, and 50 g of fresh cream and
lower the heat, and stir till smooth and free from lumps. Pour this over
the cheesecake before you refrigerate. You can also do this 30 minutes
into the baking, and let it bake with the cake for the remainder of the
time.

The Flipping

If
you have not used a springform tin or a tin with a removable bottom,
you will have to go around the edges with a spatula, nudging each time
at the crust at the bottom, kind of pressing the crust and the cake
inwards. As you do this all around the edge, you will feel the crust
leave the tin, and the cake move freely. Place a plate over the tin, and
holding the tin and plate firmly together, flip. Now take another
plate, place it over the inverted cake on the plate, and gently holding
the two plates together so that they don't press on the cake, flip
again. Done.

The Secrets

Many
small secrets go into the perfect cheesecake. Do not overdo the
blending of the ingredients. The light and fluffy of a cheesecake comes
from the bake and rest time and the ingredients, not the air beaten into
it. Smooth the cheesecake down with the back of a spoon after pouring
the filling, this will help pop any air bubbles in the filling. Some cheesecake masters bake at 150 for an hour and let it rest in the oven for another hour. Use a
springform tin or a baking tin with a removable bottom if you cannot get
a springform tin. If you don't have either, microwave a wet kitchen
towel on high for 5 minutes and then place it over the bottom of the
baking tin after you have flipped it on the plate; this will help melt
the butter and loosen the crust up and make it easier for the cake to
plop out. Make sure all ingredients are at room temperature before you
start. Cling wrap the cake when refrigerating it so that it does not
pick up any odors.

The Truth

There
is no such thing as a low calorie cheesecake. Cheesecake was never
meant to be low calorie. The ones you can buy commercially are only marginally more dangerous than this recipe. Cheesecake was invented by the devil himself to add those kilos to your weight
and test your resolve to have just one small piece and then stop, and
there is pretty much nothing anyone can do about it. This is the
ultimate proof of human powerlessness! No point feeling guilty, just
give in and surrender.